January, 2010 Archives

One of the great things about having excess time on your hands is checking out entertainment possibilities you’ve heard about but haven’t pursued due to time, money or inclination. (Switching now to first-person), I stumbled upon these guys while waiting in line during a Target Black Friday sale. After I took pictures for the […]

One of the great things about having excess time on your hands is checking out entertainment possibilities you’ve heard about but haven’t pursued due to time, money or inclination. (Switching now to first-person), I stumbled upon these guys while waiting in line during a Target Black Friday sale. After I took pictures for the ill-fated Detroit Daily Press, I did some 5:00 a.m. shopping. The DVD section was decimated just after they opened and all the Flight of the Conchords disks were pillaged.

I made a mental note to visit my local Lackluster video store and check them out.

Anyone who gets my sense of humor knows these guys are a perfect fit. The video above is just the two of them in concert, sitting on stools. They’re almost as good there as they are in their now-canceled TV series. The TV show takes their songlist and weaves them into a deadpan plot. I get the impression that they just ran out of energy trying to connect all their incredibly disparate, yet hilarious songs.

They gave it a good run, even including Troy High’s own Sutton Foster in a few episodes. Skye tells me that one of her World College buddies, (more on World College later), has a cousin who lives near one of the Conchords and that they’re a national treasure in New Zealand. Apparently anyone who’s noticed outside of New Zealand is a national treasure.

Since I didn’t have anything new, earth-shattering or original to share with the class and my end-of-year links below seemed — well — so 2009, I thought you’d enjoy watching stuff that makes me : ) LOL, ROTFLMAO and other textual things.

Mostly, they make me happy. And, like Gretchen Rubin asks on her Happiness Project,“What do I want from life, anyway?” And then answers with the simple yet soul-shattering response, “I want to be happy.”

Eventually I’ll post some more meaningful stuff here. Yes, I’ll tell you my favorite 2009 movies like many of you have been asking for. And there are certain to be some rip-snorting blog entries that defy convention, expose reality for what it really is, root out corruption and offer tips on gardening.

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Getting Laid (off) by Rodney Curtis

Nothing stops The Spiritual Wanderer, as Rodney Curtis is known to readers far and wide from the title of his first humorous book about the many quirky challenges of life in America. Then, suddenly his life went from quirky to terrifying as he was hit with a double whammy: a layoff notice and a diagnosis of cancer. Many would have folded under the pressure, but Rodney’s approach to life remains undimmed. As he says in his introduction, he keeps laughing in the face of fear.

A ‘Cute’ Leukemia by Rodney Curtis

The shocking L-words struck like hammers: “Laid off,” then, “Leukemia.” Like millions of Americans, Rodney Curtis feared for his life and his family. But what that deadly acute leukemia didn’t know was: It was dealing with the Spiritual Wanderer, the columnist who is famous for finding humor and wisdom in daily life. Rodney started by renaming his foe: “A Cute Leukemia.” He explains, “Nothing makes cancer madder than belittling it and pinching its darling baby cheeks.” If you’d like to try chuckling in the face of your fears, join Rodney on his quest to recover both humor and health.

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Spiritual Wanderer by Rodney Curtis

Who is the Spiritual Wanderer? He’s an ordinary person like you and me. When he crawls out of bed each morning, he needs to find a cup of frozen coffee before he can contemplate searching for spiritual answers in the cosmos. As his day unfolds, Rodney Curtis looks everywhere for meaning and hope–and always for humor. He wanders through the lives of people around him, through the streets with his beloved dogs and even searches for spiritual guidance in the lights high above us, although that winking glow up there sometimes turns out to be a streetlight. In these 40 short adventures with the Wanderer, you’ll likely find yourself standing very close to your own home.